Resident Evil is one the most successful horror survival franchises out there. It has been terrorizing gamers ever since the first title was released in 1996 on the PlayStation by Japanese developer Capcom, and it has spawned a lot of sequels, with the next generation title, Resident Evil 5, currently under development at Capcom and slated for an early 2009 release.

Its developer recently started to reveal several very interesting aspects about it, including the fact that it would take the zombie shooter franchise to new heights in terms of realism and graphics. Masachika Kawata, the producer of Resident Evil 5, talked about the numerous influences the development team had when creating this very much awaited title, like movies, especially Black Hawk Down, and even Western games, which were used as a source of inspiration for some of the gameplay elements.

"The team was inspired by manga and many other modern movies; the obvious one is Black Hawk Down. Having said that, that wasn't our only influence... The inclusion of co-op play was influenced by western gamers. I can't talk about it right at this moment, but we have incorporated some other aspects of western games into Resident Evil 5 during development." he said.

When asked about the fact that the game has a co-op gameplay mode, Kawata said that the team didn't introduce it just to please the Western fans. Although Capcom wants to appeal to a bigger audience, Japanese fans will also be interested in this feature.

"Capcom is dedicated to creating games suitable for the western market, but we didn't include co-op just for western fans. Our take with co-op is that it's an expansion of the action, and Japanese fans are starting to go online. So, we're hoping it's as well received in Japan as it will be in the West." Kawata added.

It's really nice to see that big companies such as Capcom are trying to incorporate the good elements from other games on the market into their own titles. In the end, it's all about the gamers, who get the most exciting gameplay experience even, though they have seen various control schemes or gameplay mechanics in other titles.